Re: Minorities’ votes may decide fate of 96 constituencies
you are right changes were made in Musharraf’s regime. The minorities now can vote only on general seats, where as their own members are selected by political parties.
As Elections Approach, Pakistan
For much of Pakistan’s history, a limited number of seats in the national and provincial assemblies were reserved for each minority community, and members of those communities voted for representatives to fill those seats. That system was generally unpopular with minorities, including Christians and Hindus, whose communities felt marginalized.
But what followed, they say, turned out to be even worse. A “reform” introduced in 2002 by former military ruler-turned-president Pervez Musharraf stopped minorities voting separately and directly for their own representatives.
A 342-member National Assembly was made up of 272 directly-elected seats – filled by the major political parties, all Muslim – with another 60 seats are reserved for women and the remaining 10 for non-Muslims.
The 10 minority seats are filled by appointees of major political parties, in proportion to the size of vote they attract.
Non-Muslims have virtually no say in the selection of the ten individuals who supposedly represent them at a national level, and claim that they tend to follow the line of their party patrons rather than the minorities whose interests they are meant to promote.
At a recent meeting in Faisalabad politicians, religious leaders, civil society representatives and others discussed the issue and called on the government to replace the current system with a “dual” one that would enable them to choose minorities representatives directly, but without losing the right to vote for national party representatives in their constituencies too.
“In the [former] separate electoral system we voted only for our co-religionists and that alienated us from the mainstream,” explained Human Rights Focus Pakistan president Naveed Walter, one of the organizers.
“Now we can only vote for a Muslim and that is making communities disinterested in politics.”